← Back to the Family Dashboard

Install the Family Shield

The dashboard decides the rules. This extension is the part that enforces them — a web page cannot block anything on youtube.com, only something running inside the browser can. It takes about two minutes and it is free.

1. Get the files

The shield is not on the Chrome Web Store yet, so it installs unpacked — the same way any extension is tested before it is listed.

Download the ZIP Browse the folder

Unzip it. The folder you want is the one called extension inside — not the whole download.

2. Load it into Chrome

  1. Open chrome://extensions — paste that into the address bar, it will not open from a link.
  2. Turn on Developer mode, top right.
  3. Click Load unpacked and choose the extension folder.
  4. The shield appears in the list with an ID under its name — a long string of letters. Copy it.
Edge and Brave work the same way; the address is edge://extensions or brave://extensions. Firefox and Safari use a different extension format and are not supported yet.

3. Pair it with this dashboard

Paste the ID here. This is what lets the dashboard send your rules to the shield — without it the shield runs the default 10-to-13 settings and ignores anything you choose.

This used to ask you to run a line of JavaScript in the browser console. It does the same thing, without asking a parent to open a developer tool.

4. Set your rules

Back on the Family Dashboard, unlock with your PIN, choose the age profile and the categories, then press Save and send to the shield. Do that after every change — the shield only hears about rules you send it.

Open the Family Dashboard

What it does, and what it does not

The shield reads the text a platform puts on screen — titles, channel names, descriptions, search terms — on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Twitch, and hides or blocks what matches your rules. That covers the three ways a child actually reaches bad content: searching for it, being recommended it, and clicking it.

It does not watch the video, so a clean title on a bad video can still get through. It is a filter, not a guarantee, and it is not a substitute for knowing what your kid watches.